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Breaking Rules In The Toy Business

While kicking around the possibility of getting into the toy business, entrepreneur Nicholas J. Webb found that industry experts felt that the best way to turn a profit was to create a toy that children would get sick of within a week or so. After their excitement over a new plaything had waned, they’d toss the toy and buy another one.

Webb, CEO of growth and strategy firm Lassen Innovation, decided to go in the opposite direction. He’d create a toy that could be played with over and over again, used to build things and possibly have a place in an educational curriculum. So he invented Hӓnz, a straightforward construction system for kids around which Webb has craftily built a social challenging dynamic to connect the toy’s users.

Apparently, in the toy industry, there’s a lot of talk about toys becoming basically irrelevant, says Webb. “They physical thing is being replicated by the digital thing.” Hӓnz are labeled for children ages 8 and up but he expects to grab the attention of kids between 8 and 13. “That’s the very market that’s leaving the construction set business,” said Webb.

Webb felt trepidation upon unveiling his new venture at the Toy Fest West in Las Vegas on March 13. Setting up his relatively drab-looking, utilitarian building sets alongside more colorful competitors caused him to wonder whether he would be able to grab the attention of kids, let alone retailers. By the end of the day, he said he’d shaken hands to sell Hӓnz to over 60 retailers in the northern California and Bay area, as well as museum shops around the country.

The challenges the building toy promotes allow users to create their own challenges, which can be taken up by other users through social media. Challenges include attempting to make a care that runs on the power of a mousetrap spring, making a laptop or iPhone holder, best kitchen object, etc. Teachers can form teams among their students and partake in team challengers that include categories like Artistic, Architectural or Engineering.

Webb, who holds some 40 patents, largely for medical devices, has yet to show the product to national retailers, rather seems to be focusing on a marketing and PR campaign to spread the word. He points out that Hӓnz is made in Corvalis, Oregon and was designed with consumer experience in mind. Feedback of children’s toys given by parents over social media was taken into account during development.

Will this be a disruptor of the likes of Lego? More like a disruption of a way of doing business—a dismissal of the notion that to make a dollar selling toys to children you have to build ones they’ll tire of in a week.

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